Copy 1

The life of Sir Isaac Newton / By David Brewster.

  • David Brewster
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life of Sir Isaac Newton / By David Brewster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    136/392 page 114
    explained the stations and retrogradations of the planets, and the vulgar prejudices which a false in- terpretation of scripture had excited against a be- lief in the motion of the earth, rendered it difficult ever for great minds to escape from the trammels of authority, and appeal to the simplicity of na- ture. The Sovereign of Castile, the generous and noble- minded Alphonso, had long before proseribed the rude expedients of his predecessors ; and when he declared that if the heavens were thus constituted, he could have given the Deity good advice, he must not only have felt the absurdity of the prevailing system, but must have obtained some foresight of a more simple arrangement. But neither he nor the astronomers whom he so liberally protected seem to have established a better system, and it was left to Copernicus to enjoy the dignity of being the re- storer of astronomy. This great man, a native of Thorn in Prussia, following his father’s profession, began his career as a Doctor of Medicine, but an accidental atten- dance on the mathematical lectures of Brudzeyius excited a love for astronomy, which became the leading passion of his life. Quitting a profession uncongenial to such pursuits, he went to Bologna to study astronomy under Dominic Maria, and after having enjoyed the friendship and instruction of that able philosopher, he established himself at Rome in the humble situation of a teacher of ma- thematics. Here he made numerous astronomical observations which served him as the basis of fu- ture researches ; but an event soon occurred, which, though it interrupted for a while his important
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